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Steve Fischer

The CBC's Steve Fischer travelled to Windsor to speak with people there about the impact of a downtown casino.

The City of Ottawa has officially made its interest known in opening a new casino and the Ontario Lottery Gaming Corporation has been public with a desire to put a gaming facility in the heart of any city that gets one.

Few Ontario cities have casinos and the first to take the leap was Windsor, 18 years ago. CBC News spoke to residents, stakeholders, gamblers and the OLG to gauge what impact a downtown casino has had on the city's downtown core.

The casino was part of an economic boom in the late 1990s but tightened border security and the improved Canadian dollar hurt the gaming centre.

Jobs have been cut, homes have been boarded up, business in surrounding areas has disappeared and the casino has been hurt by the opening of other gaming centres in Detroit, just across the U.S.-Canada border.